Pallet-Packing Robot: This simulation shows a robot in the middle of creating a pallet of boxes of mixed sizes. NIST engineers are seeking university teams to develop such simulations for a May competition. Credit: NIST

(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking university teams to participate in a 2010 Virtual Manufacturing Automation Competition, May 2–3, to simulate an industrial robot performing a common but complex shop floor task—stacking odd-lot boxes on a shipping pallet. NIST, the engineering society IEEE, and Georgia Tech are co-sponsoring the competition.

The winning team will run part of their simulated task on a robot at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2010 in Anchorage, Alaska, also in May, as part of a demonstration of seamless transition from simulation to real-world systems.

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